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Mike
was a custodian
in an elementary school in South Minneapolis. He was smart and had gone
to college, but dropped out because he didn't have a clear sense of what
he wanted to do. He was well liked, but knew he didn't want to be a custodian
for the rest of his life. One day he saw an ad about Augsburg's Weekend
College (WEC) and came to campus to learn more about it. Mike enrolled
in the elementary education major, earned his college degree along with
his teaching license, and became a teacher in the same school where he
had been a custodian—a life transformed. 
Stories
like Mike's are countless in the history of the Weekend College program.
Over the last 20 years, WEC has become a unique part of Augsburg's educational
mission in the city.
In
the early 1980s Augsburg became aware of some dramatic demographic trends.
The post-war baby-boom generation was aging, and it was being followed
by a much smaller age cohort—the "bust generation." The
number of Minnesota high school graduates was going to drop by over 30
percent from the late ’70s to the early ’90s, while the number
of working adults needing a college education was greatly increasing.
By the mid 1980s, 45 percent of the students in American higher education
were over the age of 25. Most of these students were living and working
in large urban areas.
As
the only truly urban Lutheran college, Augsburg had to re-evaluate its
educational mission in light of these new demographic trends. A couple
of the Catholic colleges in the Twin Cities—St. Thomas and St. Catherine's—had
just begun non-traditional adult programs. After a great deal of discussion
with faculty, staff, and administration, Augsburg decided to become the
only protestant college in the Midwest to offer church-related degree
programs to working adults. Over the years, the Weekend College program
grew from 69 students at its beginning in 1982 to a peak enrollment of
1,268 in 1991, and expanded from three majors in 1982 to 17 at present.
Since the early ’90s, enrollment has remained above 1,000 students,
comprising more than one-third of the total Augsburg student population.
Now
after 20 years of operation, Augsburg is looking back over the development
of the Weekend College program and re-affirming its centrality to the
overall mission of the College. The demographic numbers have become even
more dramatic. Today over 55 percent of the students in higher education
are over age 25. Less than 20 percent of the high school graduates in
the U.S. go directly to college and complete their degrees in four years.
The majority of the people currently enrolled in college have followed
some sort of "non-traditional" path.
 Does
Augsburg still believe that the Weekend College program is a good match
between the educational needs of this large adult student population and
the mission of the College? Absolutely. In 1997 the faculty and staff
of Augsburg wrote a new vision statement for the College. Key concepts
in this vision were those of "vocation" and "transformation."
Augsburg believes that a college education must make a qualitative difference
in the lives of students—a "transforming" difference that
helps students relate their abilities, skills, and learning to the needs
of the world. That is what "vocation" is all about.
There
are, however, some disturbing trends in adult education. Many colleges,
including a number of church-related colleges, are offering adult programs
that focus primarily on work-skill development without a clear emphasis
on the liberal arts, and certainly without a focus on the church-related
values at the center of their founding mission. These adult programs focus
more on convenience than character. Adults can take classes in a hotel
or on-line. They might not ever see their classmates face-to-face or even
set foot on campus.
While
this approach to adult education might be appropriate for graduate programs,
Augsburg has
held to its traditional values in the undergraduate Weekend College program.
Certainly, most WEC majors are directly related to work-world needs, but
all majors are exactly the same ones that are offered
in the day school program. The general education requirements are also
the same, specifying the same liberal arts perspectives, including three
courses in religious studies. Many WEC students have entered the College
with an exclusive focus on specific work skill development and have been
surprised that their favorite course has been in religion, sociology,
English, or philosophy. These courses have helped them rethink important
questions in life—questions about purpose, responsibility, meaning,
and values.
It
is this combination of work-related majors and liberal arts coursework
that continues to make Weekend College so valuable for working adults.
Most students enter WEC in their 30s, a time in life when people often
re-examine their life goals and commitments. In WEC, they find a means
to do that re-examination and to redirect their lives to more meaning
and reward.
An
adult student in the bachelor's program in nursing spoke about the power
of Augsburg's adult education during a graduation celebration last spring.
She recounted the transforming power of the religion course that took
her to Augsburg's study center in Mexico for eight days and the impact
of the community health nursing course that placed her in a Salvation
Army clinic to do health assessments with recent immigrants. "I will
never be able to look at the world in the same way," she gratefully
reported to the audience. That is the transforming value of an Augsburg
education—as relevant to students now as it was 20 years ago.
For
information about the WEC program, call 612-330-1101, e-mail wecinfo@augsburg.edu,
or visit www.augsburg.edu/wec
.
—Rick
Thoni directed the Weekend College program from its beginning in 1982
until 1991. He is currently director of Augsburg's Rochester Program.
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